Document: EB 2017/121/R.8 Agenda: 5(b) Date: 2 August 2017 E Distribution: Public Original: English Republic of the Philippines Country Strategy and Programme Evaluation Note to Executive Board members Focal points: Technical questions: Dispatch of documentation: Oscar A. Garcia William Skinner Director Chief Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD Governing Bodies Tel.: +39 06 5459 2274 Tel: +39 06 5459 2974 e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] Fumiko Nakai Senior Evaluation Officer Tel.: +39 06 5459 2283 e-mail: [email protected] Executive Board — 121st Session Rome, 13-14 September 2017 For: Review EB 2017/121/R.8 Contents Acknowledgements ii Executive summary iii Appendix I. Agreement at Completion Point 1 II. Main report – Republic of the Philippines Country Strategy and Programme Evaluation 5 i EB 2017/121/R.8 Acknowledgements This country strategy and programme evaluation (CSPE) was conducted by Fumiko Nakai, IOE Senior Evaluation Officer and lead evaluator, with contributions from Derek Poate (IOE principal senior consultant – country programming and strategic issues), Maliha Hussein (IOE senior consultant – lending portfolio assessment) and Elmer Mercado (IOE consultant – natural resource management, local institutions and indigenous peoples' issues). Laure Vidaud, IOE Evaluation Assistant, provided administrative support. The evaluation benefited from a peer review within IOE. IOE is grateful to IFAD’s Programme Management Department – in particular, the Asia and the Pacific Division - for their collaboration on this evaluation. Deep appreciation is also due to the Government of the Philippines for its cooperation throughout the evaluation process, including organizational and logistical support for field visits by the CSPE mission and co-organizing the national workshop held in Manila on 16 November 2016 – and particularly the National Economic Development Authority, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Agrarian Reform, the Department of Trade and Industry and IFAD-financed project staff. IOE also thanks its other partners who gave of their time to meet with the CSPE team and share their views. ii EB 2017/121/R.8 Executive summary I. Background and context 1. In line with the IFAD Evaluation Policy (2011) and as approved by the Executive Board at its 116th session in December 2015, the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE) undertook the first country strategy and programme evaluation (CSPE) of the Republic of the Philippines in 2016. 2. Scope. The CSPE assessed the IFAD-Government partnership pursued under the country strategic opportunities paper and programme of 1999 and 2009 respectively. The evaluation covered the following areas: (i) the lending portfolio (seven loans that became effective between 2003 and 2015); (ii) non-lending activities (knowledge management, policy dialogue, partnership-building and selected grants under implementation after 2010); and (iii) the performance of IFAD and the Government. 3. Objectives. The CSPE has two main objectives: (i) to assess the results and performance of the IFAD-financed country strategy and programme; and (ii) to generate findings and recommendations for the future partnership between IFAD and the Republic of Philippines for enhanced development effectiveness and rural poverty eradication. The CSPE was conducted in line with the IOE Evaluation Manual (second edition, published in 2015). The findings, lessons and recommendations from the CSPE will inform the preparation of the new country strategic opportunities programme (COSOP) scheduled for submission in 2017. 4. CSPE process. The CSPE was conducted in several phases. The preparatory stage involved a mission to the Philippines between 27 January and 5 February 2016 and the preparation of the CSPE approach paper. The main CSPE mission visited the Philippines from 29 March to 22 April 2016. It included meetings in Manila, as well as field visits to eight provinces in four regions (Cordillera Administrative Region, Northern Mindanao, Western Visayas and Eastern Visayas). The project performance evaluation (PPE) mission for the Rural Microenterprise Promotion Programme (RuMEPP), which was conducted in January 2016, made field visits to two other regions (Caraga and SOCCSKSARGEN), in addition to the Cordillera Administrative Region. The findings of that PPE provided inputs for the CSPE. 5. IFAD in the Philippines. Since 1978, IFAD has supported 15 loan-financed projects in the Philippines for a total cost of US$771.5 million. The total amount of IFAD lending to date is US$241.9 million, out of which this evaluation covers seven IFAD loans amounting to US$153.4 million. In the earlier period, cofinancing of projects initiated by other international financial institutions used to be IFAD’s main operating modality in the Philippines, but this pattern has changed over the past decade. In its active portfolio, IFAD now directly supervises all projects but one, which is cofinanced with the Asian Development Bank. IFAD established its country presence in the Philippines in 2009. 6. IFAD prepared COSOPs in 1999 and 2009. All three pipeline projects included in the 2009 COSOP experienced a long gestation period: one of these was approved in December 2012 (with significant implementation delays) and the other two in 2015. IFAD's Philippines portfolio has been a mixture of area-based projects with multi-sectoral components based on a participatory approach, and interventions with wide geographical coverage and a sectoral focus. The main target group has included upland farmers, indigenous peoples, agrarian reform beneficiaries and fishers. Geographical coverage has been extensive between the different projects. The diversity of government agency partners in the loan-financed projects is a notable point in the portfolio. iii EB 2017/121/R.8 7. With the presence of development partners with large resource envelopes, IFAD financing constitutes a very minor part of the official development assistance to the Philippines (about 5 per cent in the agriculture sector). II. Lending portfolio 8. Relevance. The project objectives and thrusts have generally been well aligned with government and IFAD strategies. However, one programme stands out in the portfolio: the Rapid Food Production Enhancement Programme (RaFPEP). This programme was conceived in response to the 2007-2008 food price crisis and in support of the Government's Rice Self-Sufficiency Plan, with two distinct sub- projects: one for short-term seed acquisition and distribution for the first year (cofinanced with the European Union), and the other for longer-term support for communal irrigation systems. While IFAD corporate documents emphasize the Fund's strategic role in supporting the transition from a short-term post-emergency response to medium- to long-term solutions, in this case the two sub-projects were largely disconnected even if financed by the same loan. 9. The needs, constraints and opportunities of the different target groups, and differentiated strategies for reaching them were not always clearly identified. For example, "farmers on communal irrigation systems" were treated the same way at design, without recognizing differences between land owners, tenants and sharecroppers; or in microenterprise development support, it was not clear whether the focus was to be more on the smallest microenterprises or the larger ones or both. On the positive side, there has been a strong focus on gender mainstreaming in the projects. Even when there was little reflection on this in design (e.g. the irrigation sub-project under RaFPEP, RuMEPP), the proposed project activities have generally been highly relevant to women, demonstrating the potential to contribute to their social and economic empowerment. 10. The overall thrusts of project activities are judged to be relevant to the needs of the rural poor. But in some cases there are design weaknesses – for example, wrong or uncertain assumptions, under-design, complex design or lack of clarity in impact pathways, leading to issues such as: (i) unclear purposes and roles of different types of beneficiary groups and organizations, with some positive exceptions such as irrigators’ associations; (ii) support to land titling for indigenous peoples with insufficient reflection on different contexts, coordination challenges with various agencies and legislation; and (iii) predominant focus on credit lines as a means to improve access to finance by microenterprises, overlooking the need and opportunities to enhance supply capacity of financial service providers. 11. Effectiveness. The achievements relative to the objectives have been most notable and visible in relation to support to irrigated agriculture, rural infrastructure, improved participation of communities in development planning and implementation, and in strengthening their organizations, although with varied performance for different types of organizations. The effectiveness of the group- based approach pursued under some projects (e.g. enterprise groups) for increasing livelihood opportunities has not been proven with convincing results and evidence. 12. RuMEPP made a significant contribution to the development of microenterprises in some cases. However, in the absence of comprehensive and reliable data, the extent of such successes among those who were reached by the programme, as well as the acceptable attrition rate, is not known with certainty. 13. The evidence is mixed for areas such as natural resources management and improved access